1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to apparatuses and methods for information presentation, and computer readable recording media having information presentation programs recorded therein, and more particularly, to information presentation apparatus and method that change a way of presenting document information according to its attributes so as to present contents of the document information in a readily comprehensible manner, and a computer readable recording medium recording therein an information presentation program for execution of the method above.
2. Description of the Background Art
As digitalization of information advances, various kinds of document data including news articles have become available. These document data may be presented on a computer display, an electric bulletin board or the like, whose contents users can read. The contents of the document data may also be vocalized, which users can listen to through mobile telephones or the like. If the document data are being displayed, however, the users should read the data to confirm their contents. Likewise, if the document data are being vocalized, the users should carefully listen to them to confirm the contents. Thus, with a huge amount of document data, it has been difficult to readily determine which portion of the document data would contain necessary or important information.
An information processing apparatus has been disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 9-190438 to solve such problems. In this information processing apparatus, document data is divided into a plurality of words, and additional information is applied to each word. Displaying attributes, such as color and size of letters, are changed for each word according to the additional information applied thereto, and the entire document data is displayed. The contents of the document data on display thus become readily comprehensible.
With such an information processing apparatus as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 9-190438, however, the displaying attributes are changed on a word-to-word basis, which will make the entire display discursive. It is still difficult to comprehend the contents of the entire document since each word should be confirmed. As the displaying attributes of a document are partially changed (on a word to word basis), readability of the document is degraded. Further, this method exhibits no effects when the document data is being displayed with scrolling as in the electric bulletin board or displayed with switching a part of the document data. Further, if the document data includes a hyperlink as in the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) document, displaying attributes of the link are determined according to the word itself that represents the link; they do not reflect the content of another document data linked thereto.
An object of the present invention is to provide information presentation apparatus and method that present document data in a manner that makes its content easy to comprehend. Another object of the present invention is to provide a computer readable recording medium recording therein an information presentation program for execution of the method above.
To achieve the above-described objects, the information presentation apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention includes: a storage unit that stores information including at least one document data; an output unit that has a displaying unit for externally outputting information; a displaying attribute determination unit that determines at least one kind of displaying attributes for outputting prescribed document data within the storage unit, based on prescribed information including document attribute information, or attribute data, showing a document attribute corresponding to a content being represented by the prescribed document data; and a display control unit that causes the displaying unit to display the prescribed document data according to the displaying attribute determined.
The information presentation method according to another aspect of the present invention to achieve the above-described objects includes: a displaying attribute determination step for determining at least one kind of displaying attributes for outputting prescribed document data, based on prescribed information including document attribute information, or attribute data, showing a document attribute corresponding to a content being indicated by the prescribed document data; and a displaying step for displaying the prescribed document data according to the displaying attribute determined.
To achieve the above-described objects, in the computer readable recording medium having an information presentation program recorded therein according to a further aspect of the present invention, the information presentation program is provided to allow a computer to execute an information presentation method, wherein the information presentation method includes: a displaying attribute determination step for determining at least one kind of displaying attributes for outputting prescribed document data, based on prescribed information including document attribute information, or attribute data, showing a document attribute corresponding to a content being indicated by the prescribed document data; and a displaying step for displaying the prescribed document data according to the displaying attribute determined.
According to the information presentation apparatus, method and program as described above, the displaying attribute for output of the prescribed document data is determined based on the document attribute of the document data, and the document data is displayed according to the displaying attribute thus determined. Therefore, the content of the document data can be comprehended by simply glancing at the document on display.
In the above-described information presentation apparatus, if at least two document data are related to each other by a link, at least one link string representing such link is further stored in the storage unit. The displaying attribute determination unit has a link attribute determination unit that determines at least one kind of displaying attributes of prescribed link string within the storage unit, based on prescribed information of the document data that is linked with and designated by the prescribed link string. The display control unit has a link display control unit that causes the displaying unit to display the prescribed link string according to the displaying attribute determined.
Accordingly, the link string representing a link, such as a hyperlink, is displayed according to the displaying attribute determined based on the document attribute of the document data that is linked with and designated by the link string. Thus, it is possible to comprehend, before following the link, the content of the document data designated by the link string, from the manner in which the link string is being displayed.
Preferably, the information presentation apparatus further includes a document attribute extracting unit that analyzes prescribed document data to extract its document attribute. In this case, the document attribute of the prescribed document data can be obtained by analyzing the document data. Thus, it becomes readily possible to determine a displaying attribute corresponding to the content of the prescribed document data even if the document attribute is not set in advance for each document data.
Preferably, in the information presentation apparatus as described above, the prescribed information further includes user""s preference information corresponding to each document attribute. In this case, the displaying attribute is determined according to the degree of user""s preference with respect to each document attribute of the prescribed document data, so that it becomes possible to efficiently locate and display document data that will attract the user""s interest.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, the user""s preference information is preferably determined based of information showing how often prescribed document data has been displayed and referred to. Thus, the user""s preference is extracted from user""s reference histories of document data, so that it is unnecessary for a user to preset any document attribute that he/she is interested in.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, the displaying attribute determination unit preferably includes a table in which at least one kind of document attributes is related to at least one kind of displaying attributes, and a retrieval unit that retrieves from the table a displaying attribute corresponding to prescribed document data. The displaying attribute is thus determined by retrieving data from the table correlating document attributes of document data to displaying attributes therefor. Accordingly, by updating the contents of the table in real time, even if different document data having the same document attribute are being displayed successively, it becomes readily possible to display the different document data with different displaying attributes to distinguish therebetween.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, the displaying attribute determination unit preferably calculates and determines the displaying attribute based on the document attribute of the prescribed document data. Thus, it becomes possible to correlate a document attribute represented by continuous quantity, such as the time when the document was created, to a displaying attribute represented by continuous quantity, such as the size of letters on display.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, the at least one kind of displaying attributes preferably includes a font of letters for display. Thus, a document attribute of document data is represented by the font of letters, so that it becomes possible to comprehend the content of prescribed document data by intuition (at a glance).
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, the at least one kind of displaying attributes preferably includes a displaying color of information. A document attribute of prescribed document data is explicitly represented by the displaying color. Thus, even if the prescribed data is displayed in small letters almost illegible, it becomes readily possible to comprehend the content of the document data on display from its displaying color.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, when information is caused to move on a display of the displaying unit while being displayed, the at least one kind of displaying attributes preferably includes a pattern of its movement. A document attribute of prescribed document data can thus be represented by the pattern of its movement. Specifically, different positions on display may be assigned to different document attributes for starting the movement of document data. In this case, all that is needed for obtaining document data having a desired document attribute is to closely observe a particular starting position assigned to the attribute. Therefore, it becomes possible for a user to readily select and confirm desired document data.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, the at least one kind of displaying attributes is preferably determined by an outputting manner that can be implemented by the output unit. Thus, even if the output unit including the displaying unit is an unspecified one such as the one connected to a network, the displaying attribute can be selected to conform to the capability of the output unit.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, preferably, the output unit further has a sound output unit for outputting sound, and the information presentation apparatus further includes a sound control unit that causes the sound output unit to output prescribed sound corresponding to a document attribute of prescribed document data in synchronization with display of the prescribed document data. As the sound corresponding to a document attribute of prescribed document data is thus output in synchronization with display of the document data, even if an electric bulletin board or the like is employed as the displaying unit, oversight of the document data on display is avoided.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, prescribed document data is preferably output as speech sound from the sound output unit in synchronization with prescribed sound. As prescribed document data is thus output as speech sound, it becomes possible to know the content of the document data only by listening to the sound.
Preferably, the information presentation apparatus as described above further has a select unit for selecting a prescribed link string from at least one link string, and the information presentation apparatus further includes a sound control unit, responsive to the prescribed link string being selected, for causing the sound output unit to output prescribed sound corresponding to the document attribute of the prescribed document data that is linked with and designated by the link string. Thus, when a link string is selected, sound corresponding to a document attribute of prescribed document data that is linked with and designated by the relevant link string is output, so that it becomes possible to confirm the content of the document data designated by the link string by the sound.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, the sound control unit preferably includes a positioning unit that positions the sound being output from the sound output unit based on a document attribute of prescribed document data. As the position where the sound is to be positioned changes corresponding to the document attribute of the prescribed document data, it becomes readily possible to associate a direction from which the sound is originated, with the content of the document data being output.
In the information presentation apparatus as described above, various kinds of information related to prescribed document data are preferably output via the output unit in synchronization with display of the prescribed document data. Thus, various kinds of information concerning prescribed document data, including image, motion picture and sound, are displayed or output in relation to the prescribed document data. This allows more accurate comprehension of the content of the document data.
In the storage unit as described above, the link string may be stored separately from document data, or alternatively, the link string may be included within the document data.
The foregoing and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the present invention when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.